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Fisher v. Commonwealth

Facts:

Defendant challenged the
judgment of the Circuit Court of Fairfax (Virginia), which convicted defendant
of driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol pursuant to Va. Code Ann. §
18.2-266, and three counts of second-degree murder for fatalities in an
automobile collision.

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Holdings:

The
Virginia Court made the following holding:

A defendant's degree of
intoxication, however great, neither enhances nor impairs the set of facts
relied upon to establish implied malice. In making the determination
whether malice exists, the fact-finder must be guided by the quality of
the defendant's conduct, its likelihood of causing death or great bodily
harm, and whether it was volitional or inadvertent; not by the defendant's
blood-alcohol level. One who knowingly drives his automobile on the
highway under the influence of intoxicants, in violation of statute, is,
of course, negligent. It is a wrong, reckless and unlawful thing to do;
but it is not necessarily a malicious act. A sober driver may be eminently
malicious, while a drunken driver may be merely reckless.

Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-268
provides that a certificate attesting to the results of a blood-alcohol
analysis, performed in substantial compliance with the procedural steps
detailed in the statute, is self-authenticating as evidence of the
misdemeanor defined in Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-266. The certificate is not,
however, the only evidence the statute authorizes as proof of
intoxication, and nothing in the statute excludes evidence of the results
of other scientific tests if such evidence is otherwise admissible under
the rules. A court shall consider such other relevant evidence of the
condition of an accused as shall be admissible in evidence. Va. Code Ann.
§ 18.2-268(i). Evidence of the results of the hospital test, if supported
by a proper foundation, constitute "other relevant evidence"
within the intendment of the statute and is properly admitted as proof of
drunken driving.